Touchstone
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash, oneshot. Things would be easier for Draco if his memory worked like other people's. COMPLETE.


**Title: **Touchstone

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairings: **Harry/Draco

**Rating: **R

**Warnings:** Heavy angst, sex, profanity, somewhat weird style. Ignores the epilogue.

**Wordcount: ** 6500

**Summary: **Draco's life would be easier if his memory worked like other people's.

**Author's Notes: **This was written in response to Jolene's request for a fic about metaphorical tunnel vision. I hope this fits the bill!

**Touchstone**

"I think I can tell the right sort for myself, thanks."

In the moment when Harry Potter refused to be his friend, Draco bit down on his tongue.

Rich copper bathed the inside of his mouth, copper that had run hot and flowing in his veins just a moment before, and now splashed uselessly against his cheeks. It blended with the heat that blazed in Potter's eyes as he stood there, turning his body slightly sideways to Draco's extended hand, his head bowed and a small, mean smile twisting his mouth.

Draco needed cold, he thought. The coolness of the stones of Malfoy Manor; the ice of the formal ballrooms in the winter, when they weren't used and his parents allowed the fires to go out; the high, haunted corridors where the winter winds blew in through unshuttered windows. Draco used to consider those horrible places. He would retreat as soon as he could and lie under a heavy pile of blankets in the center of his huge bed for the sheer pleasure and contrast of the warmth.

Now he would willingly have walked naked through a snowstorm.

The image of Potter, the caustic heat of Weasley's laughter, and the taste of blood entwined themselves in Draco's head. He walked away licking at his wound, and replying absently to Vince and Greg when they tried to get his attention.

He would always remember. He always did. And whenever he looked at Potter in the coming years, the bitterness would return, without a spot on it, wrought in unforgiving clarity.

Unforgiving heat. His yearmates didn't understand why Draco wanted to sit far away from the fire after any encounter with Potter, and Draco didn't attempt to enlighten them.

* * *

Potter grabbed the Snitch from under his nose.

Draco had his hands on the broom when it happened. The wood was already smoother and slicker than normal from the sweat on his palms. He would have wiped them on his robes, but he knew that would reveal his nervousness to his enemies. His father had carefully taught him not to do that. Draco did what his father said, except in those small and insignificant moments when Lucius would never find out about his disobedience anyway.

The slickness under his hands increased as he watched Potter lying on the ground with everyone gathered around him, including that fool Lockhart. Yes, Potter was injured. But what did that matter? He was the center of attention, and he had won the game, the first game Draco had played against him, the game that should have been Draco's triumph to be carried back on the shoulders of his comrades.

The sweat on Draco's skin chilled. Flint flew up beside him and yelled at him, then reached out and lightly slapped him on the face. His hand slid right off.

"Like touching a pane of fucking glass," Flint told the others in the common room later, and there was more than one uneasy glance in Draco's direction.

He had to get down on the ground, Draco knew, before he fell off the broom. So he reeled to the earth and slipped onto the pitch. He tried to clutch at the grass, but it was slippery and bent away from him. He tried to stand, and the earth seemed to ripple. The only reason he didn't fall was Father's training.

Draco allowed himself only one glance at Potter before he turned away. The memory clung to him like a film of water and turned into rain as he thought about it. He had once loved to walk in the rain, his face turned up, knowing that he would remember the impact of every drop on his dry lips and burning cheeks years later. It had especially helped him when he remembered how Potter had refused his hand and felt as if he was burning alive.

Now the rain wouldn't help him.

He went into the school and cast a Drying Charm on himself. Then he did it again, so that it was difficult to speak later because he had to work saliva into his mouth.

But it helped. The sweat went away. He could get a grip on the world again. He could remember something—sometimes—besides the moment of humiliation when Potter had won over him, _again_.

This was a more personal defeat, this time, since it had happened in front of the whole school and not a single professor or an isolated group of students.

Slickness—the touch of ice, the brush of a Kneazle's tongue, the slide of glass with condensation on it—would bring that image to mind, as bright and shining as when it was first moistened.

* * *

The impact of the earth against his head was nothing compared to the impact of terror in his chest as the great beast reared above him, wings flapping as it screamed. Draco stared up at it and wondered if this was going to be the end of all his memories. The air was bright, and so were the talons that started to come down towards him.

But someone turned it aside at the last minute, and Draco stood, arm bleeding, people staring at him. That some of their expressions were ones of sympathy made no difference. Draco could still feel it.

That moment when he had fallen.

In a way, he was still falling. When he sat in the hospital wing for Madam Pomfrey to examine and heal the wound, he remembered the moments when Potter had circled above his head on the monstrous hippogriff's back, his face alight with joy.

Once again, he had managed something simple that Draco hadn't. The notion chopped and cut at Draco, and he bit his tongue again and again.

But the taste of copper simply brought back the moment when Potter had rejected him. He had to turn to another sensation, and he found it when he closed his eyes and lay on the bed. One of the pillows was hard. Draco raised his head, punched at it, and smoothed it out again.

He remembered the unyielding force of the ground, and the way the terror had sat on him, so solidly that he had nearly expected to see a visible creature perched on his chest. Hardness was this memory's companion. Draco could smack his hand against the side of the bed and see those talons again.

It was strange, though, because for the first time in his experience, his mind twisted and crimped the memory like a photograph that had got half-pulled out of its setting. When Draco took it out to look at again, because he had fended off a stone some Gryffindor had flung and the hard sensation reminded him, he discovered that the talons had faded, and Potter's face had not.

As always, the memory settled on Potter, and stayed there.

Draco could avoid fires and raise an immediate Impervious Charm when it rained and make sure that his bed was always soft, but he couldn't avoid the memories that hunted him down the corridors of his mind, where all the hounds wore Potter's face.

* * *

Potter burst out of the surface of the lake, head tilted back as though he had to suck in every breath possible, or drown in mere air. Draco felt a moment of perfect, pointed scorn. He could despise Potter for not realizing, as the rest of the Champions had, that his friend was never in any danger. That was good. It was an undoubted triumph. Draco touched the badge on his robe, the one that flashed POTTER STINKS at the moment, and nodded.

But then, as Potters swam to the side of the lake without paying any attention to him, Draco's agitation returned. How could he say that he was winning when Potter didn't _acknowledge _that Draco was winning? Draco needed people to realize that he'd won, or the triumph wasn't real.

Draco started to lean forwards, intent on showing Potter his smile. At least that would mean that Potter had to see it and wonder about it, even if he ultimately decided that it meant nothing. Potter was too prone to do that with Draco's attempts to assert his primacy, as Draco had discovered to his dismay.

But Potter turned and heaved himself up, and Draco was able to see that he dragged two people with him. One, the silver-haired little girl, resembled Delacour enough that Draco was certain she was related to her. Potter had rescued them both, even though everyone else had realized the truth.

Just giving Potter the smile wasn't enough. Draco had to do something else. He pushed past Crabbe and Goyle, and tried his best to get closer, down to the shore of the lake. Potter had to hear him laughing.

He tripped on the stands, and a splinter went all the way in under his nail when he pressed his hand against the wooden seats to catch himself. Draco couldn't howl at the pain. It was so shocking. He held up the hand in front of him and stared at it.

And then he discovered something strange. He didn't only despise Potter. Oh, he mostly did, but the emotion was joined by another one, a strange one, that resounded in his empty chest like the beating of a drum.

He also wondered what would have happened if he had been under the lake. Would Potter have rescued him?

_Of course he wouldn't have, _Draco thought in the next instant, in his father's voice. _He despises you._

But Potter felt nothing for the little Delacour girl at all. And he had rescued her. It seemed all one had to do to deserve Potter's pity and protection was to be in a hopeless situation. Draco tasted blood in his mouth and wondered if he should have arranged to stub his toe or break a bone before trying to confront Potter on the Hogwarts Express all those years ago.

He fought his way back to his feet and stared at the splinter sticking under his nail. It filled this moment with a small but piercing pain. That didn't matter. Sensations had never had to be big to qualify for a memory in Draco's mind. They only had to be sharp.

This was sharp, and for once, it wasn't because Potter had inflicted a personal humiliation on him, or done well in a competition where Draco was fighting him. Even Draco wasn't vain enough to think that he was the only student kept from participating in the Tournament, after all, or that Potter specifically missed his presence.

But he had to think about the pain, and he had to think about the fact that, for one moment, he could envision Potter swimming through the green water towards him, face grim, poised for a rescue.

Then Draco told himself not to be stupid. The hostages had all been asleep when they came back to the surface, though they'd woken up right afterwards. He wouldn't have seen Potter coming, and that "memory" was all fabrication, because he would have been sitting there with his eyes closed.

The piercing part remained, though. The important thing, the new thing that had gone in under Draco's soul like the splinter under his nail, was the emotion he felt towards Potter. Perhaps he wouldn't have minded the rescue.

Perhaps he wanted Potter to pay attention to him—not because Potter had refused his hand, not because Draco always wanted _everyone _to pay attention to him, but because it meant Potter acknowledged his existence, and that was important.

Draco would have tried to reject the memory, but it was there in every pain from then on. When he pricked his finger with the end of a quill. When he turned around and stung the back of his knuckles with a doorknob that he reached for too fast. When he jarred his head against the sharp corner of a trunk or bedstead.

Potter was a part of his body now. For Draco, his memory was more real than his body.

* * *

Draco had been caught in a river once when he was small, when his broom had given way beneath him because he was too tired to use the magic that would make it fly. He had plummeted five feet, which wasn't so bad, and landed in the river rather than on the bank, which was. The water had curled around him and sucked him under, not allowing him to rise to his feet. The indifference and the fear were the worst things about it all, and Draco remembered the river when McGonagall tossed a failing essay at him or when he thought he hadn't done well on a Potions exam.

This was something different, though he could feel the river dashing past his feet, a compelling, cold current that would sweep him on and smash him and destroy him if he wasn't careful. He hadn't realized, when he was ten years old and tumbling about in the water, that he also felt hatred. He hated the river that didn't care about him, that would take his body away and not let his parents know he had drowned.

So he hated Potter, when Potter had put his father into Azkaban and then walked away from Draco's vow of revenge as if he didn't care.

If Draco could have seen one spark of fear in Potter's eyes, then he would be satisfied. He wanted Potter to see him, he thought—wanted those eyes to focus on him. And him specifically. Part of the problem that year, Draco thought, was that Potter had a category of enemies so broad that Draco couldn't be in a category by himself. There was Umbridge, and the Dark Lord, and the Death Eaters, and the rest of the Inquisitorial Squad. Draco had tried to stand out and make himself different, but Potter never seemed to care about that, so why would he care now?

So, the river.

Draco had known heat where Potter was concerned—heat, and the taste of blood. He had known slickness, and hardness, and the piercing pain of finding out that he didn't matter after all. But now he knew cold, and it rushed in his veins and sang around his legs. It would pull him under if he let it.

There had been another dark moment when he fell into that river, too, one that he didn't think of often, not because he couldn't remember it but because he didn't like the memory. For that one moment, Draco had wanted to surrender and let the river sweep him along and away. What did he care? He had been so battered and freezing and numbed with pain that he didn't think he could fight to get back to the bank. Let the current have him.

It would have been a grand and glorious defiance to his parents and the world that expected so much of him just because he was a Malfoy.

Of course, his parents had rescued him. And Draco had learned later—if only last year—that a triumph didn't matter when no one but you would ever know about it.

Here, now, he gratefully surrendered. The river was in full flood, and would lend him its strength. He bathed in the chill water of his hatred and let it replace the weak blood that would let him down when he had to avenge his father, because he associated its taste with a moment of childish weakness. He would ride the river and let it ride him, and they would both become one in their desire to rid the world of someone named Potter.

Draco didn't regret his decision for long weeks, except in one particular. Now that both heat and cold called Potter to mind, it was a struggle for him to be comfortable.

Of course, heroes who were out to avenge their unjustly imprisoned fathers didn't get to be comfortable. So he told himself, and so he managed to remain content in this strange, tepid land.

* * *

Silver.

There was silver everywhere, already, because of the tears, but the moment that sealed it into metal was when Draco lifted his head and saw Potter's face, pale and shocked, staring back at him in the mirror above the sink.

Draco whirled around, ignoring the pale silvery shriek from an even paler Myrtle, and aimed his wand. This was the end. There was no way that he would survive this humiliation, and he was willing to destroy Potter for it. He almost didn't care what spell rolled off his tongue. The whole _point _was that one of them would come that would silence Potter, and Draco could live with anything else.

Of course, that wasn't what happened, because Potter could never obey the rules and never do as he was told. They waltzed along the floor in slow motion, and Potter shouted something, and Draco's world exploded into pain—well, it had been painful since the Dark Lord initiated him, but this was a more personal and immediate agony—as he collapsed. Distantly, he heard Myrtle shriek again, and then there was blood on his chest. Blood in his mouth, too, and he lived again through the moment when Potter had rejected him.

Potter was doing something worse than rejecting him, now.

He was babbling something, and Draco thought Potter was on his knees on the floor, beside Draco. But he couldn't keep his eyes open. Silvery mist crept in from every side, and Draco thought he would even remember this, the pain like a knife that cut him to the vitals and pierced him there. He knew that most people didn't remember pain that way, but his memory was unusual like that in the way that it was unusual about everything else.

Or perhaps he wouldn't live to cherish the memory. At the moment, that felt like the better alternative.

Then Professor Snape was there, and Potter had gone somewhere, and Professor Snape was singing something, and the pain had begun to fade. Draco decided, as he went into blackness, that he could live with the memory if it also contained that miraculous moment of health and cool breath on his skin.

He opened his eyes again in the hospital wing, and thought of silver knives and silver mirrors and silver ghosts and pain made silver by sheer experience.

He lifted his shirt and looked down, and there was a mess of silvery scars on his chest, where Potter's spell had hit him.

After that, was it any wonder that Potter came to mind when he caught a glimpse of cutlery, or a mirror frame, or the doorknobs in the Manor? And when he did, for a moment Draco would taste the pain.

Oddly, it gave him a momentary escape from the pain he experienced during the next year, when the Dark Lord was everywhere and Potter far away. And he didn't think more than half the times that silver reminded him about the humiliation that Potter had witnessed. He thought of the way Potter had knelt over him and stared down at him, instead.

The light flashing off his glasses had been silver, too.

* * *

There could have been no mistake. Draco would know those green eyes anywhere, and not only because of the silver memory. Someone could have Transfigured Potter's head into an ape's, and Draco would have known it was him as long as they left the eyes alone. Potter's face was badly swollen, but that didn't really matter. It wasn't disguise enough.

Because of that, Draco had only a moment to make a decision.

He stammered out a denial, or a half-denial. Pain was so great a presence in his life now that he _had _to think of what would get him in trouble later, whether or not he wanted to. But on the other hand…

The eyes were green. They spoke to him of the Manor gardens that he had once taken for granted, spending lots of time staring at them through the windows with his chin propped on his hand and an unread book in his lap. Draco couldn't remember the last time he had looked into untroubled greenery, trees and leaves swaying back and forth, blissfully ignorant of what was going on in the human world.

That was the strange thing, he thought later—the "later" when he had time for it, lying in his bed and thinking about the events of the day. It wasn't the fact that it was Potter that made Draco deny who he was, and probably save his life. It was the greenery of his eyes. If Potter had had blue or brown eyes, Draco might have condemned him.

He was hot and cold from that time forwards. The taste of blood was in his mouth, the gleam of silver in his eyes. He could feel hardness beneath his head when the Dark Lord loomed over him and shouted, or sharpness when a Stinging Hex was cast on him, or slickness when he stood under a shower, trying without success to wash away the war and his part in it, the role of torturer. The memories of Potter would come back at once when he thought about things like that.

But so would the greenery. The green brought him through the war, and kept him sane.

* * *

He was in the Great Hall after the battle, with his parents beside him, safe and not bloodied and not dead, and Potter was walking towards him, holding his wand out.

Draco realized that he couldn't stand. Luckily, he was sitting down already, on a table that had been turned into temporary seating, and he didn't have to sag and look as though Potter's appearance had unmanned him. He managed to nod coolly when Potter came to a stop in front of him and stared searchingly into his eyes.

"Malfoy," Potter said. That and no more, as if he assumed that Draco should automatically know what he wanted to talk about.

Draco didn't, though, given the presence of the wand, he thought he could guess. And thanks to the memories of blood and heat—even if the blood and the heat were more concentrated in his groin this time than they had been—he wanted to hear Potter speak words that acknowledged him, rather than silence that left him out.

"Potter," he said back, and waited, his hands folded in front of him. He could feel his parents peering anxiously over his shoulder, but Draco didn't think they had to worry. Potter wasn't here to hurt him. Draco had had a lot of experience in watching people who hurt others over the past year, and those memories came to him when he called for them. He met Potter's eyes now and nodded a little, so that Potter would realize he was paying attention.

Potter chewed his lip and said, "I have to return your wand."

Draco felt his eyebrows rise. So it was for that simple a purpose after all? Then why didn't Potter toss it to him and leave? Of course, he had already seen the tension around Potter's eyes and in his hands and realized that, for whatever reason, there was something more going on here.

"So do it," he said, and held out his hand to make it easier.

Potter shook his head. "In private."

Draco's muscles tingled. His sight sharpened, and he could have said how many wrinkles there were in Potter's shirt at that moment and how many motes of dust drifting through the Great Hall.

"All right," was what he said outwardly. He started to climb down from the table.

His mother's hand caught his sleeve. "It could be a trap," she whispered into his ear. "I don't see all the Weasleys here."

Draco turned to his parents, worked his mother's hand free, and kissed it. His father was watching with bloodless lips, and Draco knew that he was as worried, though for various reasons, he wouldn't express it like Mother. "I'll be fine," he said.

As if his words ensured reality, his parents leaned back and let him go. Draco was glad that there were witnesses, though, just in case there came to be a question later.

But he really didn't think so. Those memories of humiliation by Potter, painful as they were, had a monotony to them that Draco had come to despise. If he had to feel any of them, he preferred to think about the pain of the splinter and the greenery of Potter's eyes before all else. Those were the moments when Potter had led him to insight.

And insight was what was needed now.

They worked further than Draco would have thought Potter's tired legs, or his, could manage at the moment, down a corridor that led towards the stairs to Gryffindor Tower and then twisted. Potter seemed to need space from the others, or perhaps only wanted to make _sure _that no one would overhear them. When he turned around at last and set his back to the stone, Draco was aching with curiosity.

Potter wiped a hand across his eyes, dabbing at the corners of them, and murmured, "They're so sure that Death Eaters are going to jump me. I had to get away for a little while, and they clucked and squawked. Bellatrix is the only one I would have worried about doing that, and she's dead."

Draco checked inside himself and found only a void where sorrow about his aunt's death should have been. Well, so it was. He didn't think Potter had meant him to hear the words, or otherwise Gryffindor's Saintly Hero would probably have considered more carefully saying something about Bellatrix in front of her nephew.

"You wanted time away from them," Draco said. "But why time with me?"

Potter jumped and opened his eyes. That proved, as far as Draco was concerned, that those words were the babble of his subconscious and not a gift for anyone else. Well, too bad. Draco had heard them, and he wasn't about to let them go.

He had suffered in Potter's shadow for years. He had a head full of sensations that Potter had created for him and never known about. This time, Draco was determined, they would _share _something.

"It was an errand that would get me out of the way for a little while," Potter said. "Returning your wand, I mean," he added, because Draco's eyes must have showed more confusion than he would have liked. "It would look a bit suspicious if I didn't invite you to come along with me."

Anger filled Draco. He rejoiced in it. It didn't have the taste of blood, or vengeance. It was just anger, that was all, the rejection of the idea that this boy—whose life he had saved some time past, who had rescued him from the fire that would have burned him alive a few hours ago—could use Draco for a convenient excuse and no more.

He stepped forwards and shoved Potter. Potter cursed as his head slammed into the wall. "What the _fuck_, Malfoy?"

"More than that," Draco said, and he didn't particularly care if Potter couldn't hear his interior monologue and so couldn't connect what he said now to his prior thoughts. Draco intended to make himself clear through actions. "We share more than that, you git, and you _know _it." He shot his hand down and rested it on Potter's hip.

The hipbone cut into his hand. Draco gasped and then groaned. He could feel it pressing into his palm, scoring across the lines there, the lifeline and whatever the fuck the other ones were called, more than the splinter had pierced him. Time with Potter really could heal old wounds, he thought, and dipped forwards to fasten his mouth on Potter's.

Miraculously, that proved to be the cure for silencing Potter's complaints. He gasped and clenched his fingers weakly in Draco's shirt, curling them there and then flexing them open again as if he didn't know quite what to do. He didn't know how Draco's shirt was supposed to feel, Draco judged, and he had no experience with all the other feelings fighting to overwhelm him, either. That was plain.

Draco licked up the curve of his mouth and slid his tongue past Potter's lips. His mouth was all warm, wet slickness inside, and Draco laughed inside as the memory of losing that Quidditch game in second year was obliterated. He nudged at Potter's knees with his leg, wanting them to part, but not knowing how to do it right now without losing his balance. Potter could _help_, at least, instead of standing around with this stupid drowned-puppy look on his face.

"What the _fuck_, Malfoy?" Potter repeated when he drew his mouth free. He looked and sounded dazed.

"I want to do this," Draco said. "Drown myself in you. Make new memories." It was clear, and true, and he rejoiced in that. After a year—two years—of lies and terror and having to watch his back and his tongue every time he said something, he had a goal that was clear and true. His mind burned, recording each detail as it came. He lowered his head again, and tasted the sweet, fierce salt on the edge of Potter's tongue.

Potter blinked at him, and the light caught silver from his glasses as they reflected Draco's own eyes and hair. Draco could live with that, along with the vision of him bending over Potter, claiming his attention at last instead of trying to steal it or standing around passively waiting for it. Draco thought this was the role he had always been meant for.

"You can't," Potter said. "We can't." But his voice was thick and weak, and Draco knew enough about Potter's strength to realize he would have pushed Draco away already if he really wanted to. Draco snorted and this time managed to slide his knee between Potter's legs.

Potter groaned as Draco came to rest against his groin. Draco had to close his eyes at the same time and rub his hand back and forth over Potter's hipbone to remind himself there were other sensations in the world. The memory of hitting the ground after the hippogriff's attack blazed and tattered and tore. The memory of Potter riding on its back was still there, but now, Draco didn't have to feel envious, since he was taking a (rather unexpected) part in that scenario. Maybe he would never ride a hippogriff, but he could still feel the clasp of Potter's slender legs around his waist.

If Potter would _notice _what was going on.

"Really?" Draco asked, and struggled to open his eyes again. He watched Potter's lashes bobbing above his cheeks, the delicate shadows dancing beneath them. He reached out a hand, and Potter's skin was rough beneath his hand, pimpled with acne and marks that might have been the scuffs and stains of war. Draco hummed his approval and watched Potter jump in response to his hum, sliding his flesh against Draco's hand. "Who says?"

That was the most dangerous moment, Draco realized later, because Potter might have snapped that _he _said, flung Draco's hand away, and stormed off, back to the Great Hall and the Weasleys who must be looking for him by now.

Instead, Potter blinked, as if overwhelmed by that argument, and muttered, "What—who _does _say that?"

Draco grunted and focused on the green of Potter's eyes, watching them change as he kissed him again. It was clear that Potter would wander off into memories and internal concerns if Draco let him, that he had some sort of problem with his brain (well, _that _part wasn't news). Draco had to keep him focused on the here-and-now.

_Heat_, so much heat burning between them and flashing up Draco's body into his hands, making them clumsy and weak. Hardly aware of what he was doing, but knowing that his fingertips would feel this and his memory retain it for later, he peeled back Potter's shirt and then pressed his chest to Potter's. Then, after a moment's thought, he pulled back his own shirt as well, so that his scars from the curse that had almost killed him—the curse Potter had cast, the scars Potter had caused—could touch the bare flesh of his killer, his savior.

Potter's groan trembled around them. Potter reached out and touched the nape of Draco's neck, cautiously, as if he expected to find a contact poison there. Draco smiled into the kiss and lashed his tongue more fiercely, then moved his knee back and slid his hand from Potter's hip to his cock.

Potter was hard, but he still froze when Draco gripped him. Draco swallowed. The cold fear of rejection was far greater than the cold hatred that had once drowned him when he wanted to get Potter back for putting his father in Azkaban. This wasn't the most dangerous moment, perhaps, but it was the one in which Draco's nerve might have broken and he would have run.

"I—let's see what happens," Potter said, and closed his eyes, kissing Draco back hard enough to mash his lips down.

Draco sighed, or laughed—he wasn't sure which, but whichever it was, it didn't drive Potter away—and began to stroke and squeeze. Potter squirmed under his grasp, never seeming sure how he wanted Draco to hold him, and all that nervous energy went into his tongue. He gasped, he sighed, too, and once he made a startled noise as though he was shocked by his own wanton behavior. Draco leaned back and coaxed Potter's leg up around his hips. He imagined what would have happened if they had done this years ago, if they had had the _wits _to do this years ago.

But his memory was stronger than his imagination, and his memory was greedily grabbing every detail: the knocking of Potter's knees against his, the weird shudders that invaded him as he began to climb towards climax, the spasmodic movements of his eyes as they opened and shut, the sour-sweet taste of his tongue towards the back, the smell of dried sweat and blood that covered him.

The intense green of his eyes.

Draco lost himself in that green, spinning through the visionary forests, tumbling and gasping as if he was in the middle of a fall from a broom, sighing out Harry's name and reaching a trembling hand to rest on his shoulder—

They broke, both of them, flying and falling both at once, coming together and apart, and Draco's memory shone with the pleasure that blazed through them, producing its own light and heat, like lava, and Draco tossed his head back and laughed aloud.

In the green.

* * *

"That was—that was bloody weird, Malfoy." Potter sat on the floor against the wall, plucking at his trousers as if he wanted to pull them up again but simply didn't have the strength, and shook his head several times in succession.

"Yes, I know," Draco said. He leaned companionably on the wall beside Potter and checked the charm that he had cast on the mouth of the corridor. Yes, it should keep them from discovery for a short while longer. All it did was create the illusion of an empty space, but then again, most of the people hunting them would be looking for blood at least. He turned back to Potter. "How do you feel about it?"

Potter caught his breath and examined his fingernails. Draco caught his hand and stilled that. They were nice fingernails, he noted, cracked as though Potter spent a lot of his time trying to break through brick walls. Well, that fit him. Draco touched one of those jagged edges to learn the feel of it and raised an eyebrow.

"I don't know," Potter at last, shaking his head. A stray drop of come had landed in his hair. Draco reached out and knocked it free, learning the rasp of shaggy curls against his knuckles as well. Potter flushed. "I've never even considered something like this, and then I just did it. Why? Why did I go along with it?"

His voice had a deep tone to it that troubled Draco. In his eagerness to make this all go away, Potter might well convince himself that he had never wanted this and that Draco had raped him. Draco wasn't about to sit back and let that happen.

"I couldn't begin to guess," he said haughtily. "But don't you deserve the ability to do something simple once in a while, now that the Dark Lord is gone?" He felt his shoulders ache with the lightness of being able to say those words, and he grinned at Potter, not even caring if the grin came across as goofy. "If you want to rub one off with me, to get rid of the stress and tension of battle, then who's to say you shouldn't?"

Potter blinked at him, and then began to grin back. His eyes were thoughtful as he, too, looked down the corridor, back to the world they had left behind for the moment but couldn't ignore.

"That's what it was," he said. "I could explain it that way."

Draco nodded patiently. "And if you wanted to do it again," he said, "who's to say that you shouldn't?"

Potter's head whipped around to face him. Draco looked back at him, not flinching, not looking away. That green wouldn't let him fall, and he knew, he _knew_, that he would make a new memory to replace the ones of Potter's many rejections.

"I—then it would be different," Potter said.

"Yes," Draco said, and pitched his voice low. "It would be _better_."

Potter's face slowly cleared. Draco felt as if he was watching a new sun rising.

"It might," Potter said. He thought about that, then extended his hand to Draco.

Draco bit the inside of his cheek slightly as Potter's hand touched his, but this time, he wasn't trying to draw blood and stain the memory with the flavor of it. He was reminding himself of what Potter's tongue, and the marks of Potter's tongue, tasted like, and of what he would see every time he tasted that from now on.

Potter's hand settled into his, jagged nails and slender, stubby fingers, and all.

But it was Potter's steady eyes and considering smile that Draco would remember best, when so many other memories had turned to dust.

**The End.**


End file.
